Dabi's sprawled across his couch, arm hooked over his face. He's still and seems to be asleep, except his breaths sometimes come out as wheezes or get stuck in his throat, and he'll shift a little before falling back into motionlessness.
When Quiverbit enters their little apartment, he pauses, and his takeout bags nearly slip from his fingers.
"Oh!" he says excitedly. "You're here!"
"Shut it," Dabi grumbles. He curls on his side on the couch and tugs a ragged white blanket closer around his shoulders.
Quiverbit quiets. When he steps through the kitchen, pushing and pulling cabinets, opening the refrigerator, stacking plates, his movements are muted. The light through the translucent curtains is soft. The start of the day has arrived, and Dabi seems to be fast asleep—or is trying to be, at least.
A bottle of disinfectant, just bought and sharp around the edges, a roll of gauze and cloth are placed on the little worn coffee table in front of the couch. Quiverbit sounds nothing more than a shadow. Dabi blinks, and he is gone.
Dabi groans as a slice of heat and light fall over his face, and he holds a hand over his eyes. His burnt and visibly calloused fingers rub his temples.
"Where were you last night?" Dabi calls grouchily.
Quiverbit's bubbly voice comes from somewhere in the back, where the rooms are shut, locked, and bolted. It'd been a while since Dabi tried to get into them. He'd given up after the third time Quiverbit caught him.
"Business." Quiverbit's voice is muffled but cheerful. "Same as you. Though I personally think I was a bit more successful."
Dabi curses him.
Quiverbit's masked face appears over him suddenly. The light traces the curve of the hastily drawn smile. He's wearing a green hoodie with his staple long rabbit ears sewn on, but Dabi notes that the fabric is thicker. There are no tears or hanging threads. "I thought you said you weren't ever coming back."
"Well clearly, I changed my mind," Dabi grunts. "Now piss off."
Quiverbit doesn't move. "Actually, I need your help."
Dabi squints up at him. It's too bright. "What?"
Quiverbit tilts his head. The large eyes in the blank mask are empty and black. It's nothing like the wide green eyes, glittering with amusement that Dabi has caught a glimpse of.
"There's this girl," Quiverbit starts slowly. "I want her."
Dabi slowly sits up. His shoulders are bare, his skin caked with dust. He's a sickly shade of gray, and his two-thin appearance is all the more nauseating. "A girl? What, like a hookup? I'm not helping you with that shit."
"No," Quiverbit says shortly. "A little girl. She's in trouble. I want to help her."
Dabi sighs, long and slow, and falls back onto the couch. "Give me a moment."
He sees the way Quiverbit straightens, the way his shoulders raise, the way his chest puffs out in excitement.
And then Dabi pulls the covers over his face. "One more hour."
"Oh come on."
The summer training camp happens.
There's nothing Izuku can do about it—at least, not the fighting part. He is woefully unprepared. But as Shinsou sits on the kitchen counter for the first time since he was first invited, hands clasped between his knees, the kitchen lights casting dim light on the limp curls of his hair, the TV blaring with the news of Kacchan's capture, Izuku knows that his job isn't done yet.
"What happened?"
Shinsou stares at his fingernails. He does not look up.
"They took him."
The silence that comes after the confession weighs heavy in the space between them. Izuku reaches into the dark, festering anger that tangibly rests in every crevice of the air. He reels back when the words on his tongue are not sufficient enough, are awkward, hesitant, and frustratingly boring. The hiss of the TV's words are like a match held to a trail of gasoline, whispering torments about the event, begging for an outburst from the troubled teen.
"I failed." Shinsou's fingers curl and press harshly into his palms.
Izuku takes the remote from the counter and turns the TV off.
"Not yet," Izuku says into the silence. His breath is hot, and as it pushes against the inside of his mask, it ghosts over his skin. The mask is made of a more durable material than before, and will not easily break.
"Not yet."
Kacchan's eyes are dark.
Izuku shoves him toward the other group of heroes-in-training. Bitterness rests in the junctions of his finger joints—it makes his shove a little too harsh, too forceful. Kacchan catches his balance, but it's a close thing.
Glasses-boy is immediately by his side, one hand on his shoulder, the other reaching out to Izuku.
"Quiverbit!"
"Ingenium," Izuku replies flatly.
Iida's eyes widen, but he does not ask him how he knows his hero name. "Why are you helping us?"
A redhead elbows him. "Now's not the time to ask," he hisses. "He's helping us, isn't he? Don't scare him off."
Izuku laughs joylessly. His lungs hurt at the effort. The constant inhalation of Dabi's smoke hasn't been good for him, he thinks.
"You really think you could startle me away so easily?"
"Isn't that what rabbits do?" Todoroki says. "Run in the face of danger."
Izuku tilts his head, staring inquisitively at the boy he tentatively called a friend. "... I can run." He slowly steps backward, one step after another. None of them reach out to stop him. Slowly, he moves out of their hiding place behind the nearly-destroyed wall, letting the gaze of All for One and the League of Villains catch him as he does. "Can you?"
There's a moment where no one moves. Then, a snarl rips out of Shigaraki:
"It's him!"
The kids take one look at each other and flee in the opposite direction down the alleyway. They had what they wanted, and they cannot fight—not unless they want to get in trouble.
Shinsou looks back at him, pale-faced. It was his idea to bring Quiverbit, after all. His face crumples slightly when Izuku does not move, and he follows the others.
Kacchan is the last one through the mouth of the alleyway. The light from the stoplights fall over him, alight the tension in his shoulders and the curve of his face, jaw, knuckles. He pauses. He looks back at Izuku. His eyes narrow.
They are a lovely shade of red—like blood.
Izuku's heart hurts.
Stupid. Izuku rubs his sternum with gloved fingers. He doesn't miss them. They're happy without him.
"Come on, Bakugo!" shark-teeth yells. Grabs his arm. Drags him away.
The lights are beautiful tonight, Izuku thinks. Especially the way it falls on them.
Him.
Kacchan.
Izuku's arm aches. He taps at the bandages there, which hide the sprawling, spider web-like marks that stretch across his skin. When Shigaraki snatches for his head, Izuku darts away. He ignores the heavy look of All for One and All Might.
He can't. Can't look at the man who—
Disappointment lingers in his movements as he lazily faces Shigaraki.
"Quiverbit."
"God, is that what everyone calls me these days?" Izuku says. "I didn't agree to that branding, come on. Who thinks Quiverbit is a good name? That doesn't even correlate with what I do."
"Oh yeah?" Shigaraki says, voice raspy and slow. At his sides, his dry and cracked hands twitch. "Then what is it that you do?"
A line of blue flame whips across the ground between Shigaraki and Izuku, expanding into a large cloud-like shape. The heat immediately brings tears to Izuku's eyes at its brightness, even through the safety of his mask. His skin breaks out into sweat along his nose and hairline. Izuku wheezes into the porcelain.
"Well, better late than never," he chirps to Dabi, who grabs him around the waist and heaves him to the sidewalk.
Dabi sends him a glare. "Shut up and start moving."
Completely ignoring Dabi's remark, he continues as he skips, "Aww, this is like family bonding. We're having a moment! Fighting against the League together, like brothers-in-crime."
Dabi grabs him around the throat, and his hands hiss. Izuku's throat muscles seize as the blunted smell of smoke and burning flesh reaches him through his mask. "If you don't stop…"
Izuku smiles wryly, even though he knows Dabi can't see it. "Wuh-oh. Hit a sore spot, Dabi? Family a touchy subject?"
The heat pauses, though Izuku's heart still jackrabbits in his chest. He's sure Dabi can feel the way his pulse pounds frantically where his hands are. His staples dig and hook uncomfortably at the sensitive skin there.
Dabi lets go of him. "Family is not a touchy subject," he retorts.
It's a lie. Obviously. But Izuku just rubs at his throat self-consciously and says, "Oh, I believe you."
They both ignore the sarcasm there. Dabi pushes him by the shoulder, and they run, far away from the fight, from the cameras, from the kids.
From Kacchan, highlighted in the yellow glow of a lamppost.
"He called me Kacchan," Bakugo blurts to Kirishima, suddenly.
Kirishima's brow furrows. "Yeah… he's kinda weird."
Bakugo opens his mouth. He's about to explain how he doesn't get it. He grabbed onto me in the bar and stole me away before anyone could blink, before the League of Villains could take me back, Shinsou right on his tail— But his train of thought crashes and burns. He realizes what's the point? He closes his mouth.
Kacchan. Kacchan. Kacchan.
Only one person ever called him Kacchan, and his bones rest at the bottom of Dagobah beach, along with his yellow backpack they never managed to retrieve, and a stack of notebooks that Bakugo used to explode under his fingertips. He remembers the papers curling with heat, darkening with ash, smelling of smoke.
The only thing they recovered was an empty orange pill container and a few glass bottles, which were gently rocked back and forth, back and forth, back and forth by the foam of the waves rising against the sand.
Bakugo still remembers feeling the cool water against the toes of his shoes as he followed the footsteps Izuku left in his final moments. As the sand moved with time, as they slowly faded, as his footsteps finally disappeared.
"Bakugo?" Kirishima asks, concerned.
Shinsou looks at him curiously. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Maybe he had.
"Shut it Eyebags," he snarls instead. "Who the fuck is Quiverbit?"
Shinsou and Todoroki share a glance. It's Todoroki who speaks.
"A villain."
"Kind of," Shinsou tackily adds on. "It's…"
"Complicated," Todoroki finishes.
Bakugo glances between the two of them. He can see the surprise in the others' faces—so they didn't know either? "You two fuckin' know him?"
"We know of him," Shinsou says.
Their group gets caught up in the nearby crowd, and the wide screen on the building projects the image of All Might and All for One's fight. Bakugo does not scream for All Might to win, despite the loud cries roaring around him. He notices a small figure running away in the perimeter—a glimpse of Quiverbit.
The camera zooms into the image of All Might, his arm raised.
Quiverbit goes entirely unseen, unnoticed.
Some things don't change, then.
"Hello."
It's the one day that Mirio decides to hang outside of UA's borders with Tamaki and Nejire that they're approached by a short boy.
A girl is placed into their care. "Uhh," Mirio says, because he has no idea what to do with her.
"Don't worry," the boy with the mask says. Mirio immediately notices the thickness of his gloves, the hard line of steel along the knuckles, the special fabric of the fingertips and palms.
Custom-made?
"I'll come back for her," the boy says.
And then he's gone.
Mirio looks down at the sniffling girl, back up at the place where the boy used to be, and then turns to his friends.
"Uhh?"
Nejire shrugs and takes the girl's hand. "Let's go get ice cream," she says simply.
Uhh?
Kacchan and Todoroki fail their license exams.
Whatever. It doesn't change much for Izuku, really.
He sees Kacchan throwing himself into training. From the shadows, Izuku peers at him as he pushes himself in the dead of night, throwing his punches at sandbags in UA's gyms.
"I figured you'd invite that explosion kid to your little place," comes Dabi's voice ringing in his head. "What's up with the change of heart? He fits all your checkboxes."
Izuku drums his fingers on the rafter he's sitting on.
There's an answer to Dabi's question. He just doesn't want to admit it exists.
He leaves through the front gate. He knows they'll have seen him enter and exit. He knows he could've purposefully set off the alarms.
But what are they gonna do? When he has favors on the inside of UA, too?
Kacchan keeps pushing himself, and Izuku keeps coming to watch him. Apparently he's not as subtle as he thinks he's been, because one time Kacchan throws a well-timed explosion that sends him rolling to the floor.
"Why the fuck have you been watching me!?" he snarls. Explosions pop in his hands, bright and orange and angry.
Quiverbit looks up at him where he's sitting, legs splayed out in front of him. He blinks slowly. "Sorry," he says cheerfully, revealing absolutely nothing.
Kacchan storms forward and grabs him by the front of his hoodie, yanking him upward. "What kinda fucking answer is that, eh!?"
"You're so angry," Quiverbit says. He holds out a box of tic tacs. "Mint? Might help cool your jets, kid. Don't want you to have a premature aneurysm."
Kacchan throws him down, disgust crawling all over his face. There is something unreadable in his face. Quiverbit'd been expecting a punch to his face. That was actually what he had been aiming for—riling people up is his thing, really.
Izuku doesn't understand him as well as he used to, it seems.
Izuku stumbles up, swaying as he lazily gets to his feet.
The knife strapped to his cracked and bandaged skin is suddenly a very, very uncomfortable weight.
Kacchan glares at him, and his hands twitch. (Just like Shigaraki's.)
"Go on," Quiverbit says, and he presses his fingers against his chest as he gestures to himself to his palpitating heart. His grin is painful around the voice modulator in his mouth, and it stretches against the inside of his mask. "Hurt me."
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Kacchan says. His palms start to spark.
"Oh, get off my back." Don't you see? I'm just playing the games we used to do when we were kids. "Quit being so defensive. Aren't you sick of acting brave, Kacchan?"
Bakugo's face becomes stony. Quiverbit has never seen his expression turn so fast from explosive to icy. "Don't."
"Don't what?" Quiverbit says gleefully. "C'mon, I think it's a cute name."
"You're a piece of shit," Bakugo says sharply.
Quiverbit laughs. "No…" He trails off, tilts his head, and narrows his eyes at Bakugo. "I'm a villain."
Bakugo lurches toward him, and Izuku only has a moment to duck under a giant explosion. The wind throws his hoodie over his head, blinds him momentarily, sends him choking on smoke, and shatters his eardrums. Izuku cannot hear anything, cannot hear the words that leave Bakugo's moving lips, cannot match a topic to the anger in his eyes.
Ears ringing, Izuku laughs, and laughs, and laughs. He slips out the knife into his hand, aims for Kacchan's eyes, and only manages to split open the skin of his cheekbone as he ducks out of the way.
It's familiar, but different all the same. Had Izuku ever stood up for himself before?
He slips back into the darkness and does not return to UA for a long, long time.
Dabi looks down at Izuku as he passes him down the alleyway. His sweeping gestures carry the scent of something metallic.
"What did you do?" Dabi asks, arms crossed. Mild concern carries in the notes of his words.
Izuku shrugs. When he turns around, the smile of his mask looks leering. "Showed them how to regret."
Dabi doesn't ask what they would have to regret. A few hours later, as the sun is sinking, as orange light is cast into the quiet of the apartment, Dabi hears Izuku return. Entering with him is a little girl holding his hand, and Izuku is speaking gently to her.
"Her name's Eri," Izuku explains later, when she is fast asleep.
"Collecting quite the collection, I see," Dabi says.
"It was getting too quiet around here," Izuku replies.
And, only for the second time in Dabi's memory, Izuku peels away his mask. His eyes are darker than Dabi remembers them being, the circles under his eyes deeper.
There's something haunted there.
It's jarring. He always looks too young. They both do. Eri and Izuku, side by side, look like a matching pair.
The red, shiny burn marks around Izuku's throat make it hard to breathe for a moment.
Dabi averts his gaze.
The apartment starts to get fuller. There are photographs lining the walls. There's finally a carpet on the floor, and complete sets of dishes in the cabinets, and full rows of food in the refrigerator. Shinsou's blanket, which he'd forgotten since the last time he came, lays on the back of a couch. An incomplete puzzle is strewn across a new coffee table.
Dabi comes into the apartment and takes a pause. There's warmth and light coming from the fireplace. A small television in the corner is playing children's cartoons.
The question finally leaves his lips.
"I know you take pride in being a villain," Dabi says slowly, "but do you really count as one?"
Izuku pauses, something prickling at his skin. He turns and levels Dabi with a cold stare. "Yes. Of course I'm a villain, why wouldn't I be considered one?"
Dabi glances over to the young girl sitting with her back to Izuku. "Uh..." The brush in Izuku's hand glitters from the softly glowing fire in front of them. The fake real diamonds Izuku had meticulously glued onto the brush (only because Eri asked him to) gleam brightly. The hand not holding onto the hideous thing is loosely clutching a lock of Eri's long silvery hair, ready to start braiding it.
Ah.
"No reason," he finally muses. He turns his gaze down the hall to the bedroom Eri occupies, where the walls are painted a nice shade of lavender, and then to the bolted rooms opposite.
"What are in there?" he asks, not for the first time.
Izuku is quiet. Instead of a direct answer, he asks, "Do you think Nomu rot?"
Dabi decides it's better not to ask questions.
A bag full of candles is thrown on the counter.
Izuku perks up. "What's this?"
Dabi shrugs. "Consider it a gift," he says gruffly. He watches as Izuku excitedly peers into the bag, picking up the candles one by one and reading their labels.
"Oh, that's so sweet," Izuku says, voice far too bright for Dabi's liking. "I can finally get rid of that awful smoke smell."
"Oi, what the fuck is that supposed to mean!?"
Izuku sheepishly waves a hand at him. "Aw come on, you have to admit I'm right—"
"I just bought those fuckin' candles for you and you insult me!?" Dabi said, shaking him by the front of his shirt.
"Sorry, sorry," Izuku drawls cheekily. "I didn't mean it… well I guess maybe I did, but it wasn't like I was trying to insult you…"
"You little—"
"What do they smell like?"
Dabi and Izuku freeze, and both look down at Eri, who's gazing up at them with wide red eyes.
"... White pine," Dabi and Izuku say at the exact same time.
Eri blinks. "I don't know what that smells like."
"Here, here." Izuku bats away Dabi's hands. "I'll show you—"
Eri lets herself be pulled to sit on the counter, and Izuku opens the lids to the candles one by one. He lets her pick out her favorite ones, and they set them around the small little apartment.
"Cozy," Izuku says proudly once they were done.
Eri nods. "Now it won't stink as much when Uncle Touya comes over."
Izuku tries to smother his snort. Dabi's brow twitches.
"Are you fuckin' kidding me?"
Izuku doesn't really know how to take care of kids. Not long-term, anyway. Especially not traumatized ones.
But it's not like he keeps sole care of her. He thinks he's giving Aizawa gray hairs with how often she ends up in his room for days at a time. But Eri seems to like her little "visitations" with him. She thinks they're like little vacations. It's cute.
Eri tugs on his sleeve as they're going out shopping. She needed new shoes anyway, and she'd been eyeing the pink kitty ones—Izuku is determined to get them for her.
"Hmm?"
Eri scuffs her foot against the ground. "They're going… going to have a huge festival this— this uhhh weekend," she says softly. "Can you come?"
Izuku blinks. His brows raise higher and higher. "Ah."
A school festival. Where everyone would be… all the teachers and…
Eri looks pleadingly up at her, and he gently ruffles her hair. "Of course I will, squirt."
His heart's beating frantically in his chest, though.
God. What did he just agree to?
There is no name of the gifter who put a vase of yellow and white flowers—asphodels—on Inko's front doorstep.
She pauses. Then, quietly, she takes the vase into her arms. There's a letter buried in the stems. She takes it out and pulls the paper from the envelope.
It's blank.
Inko looks around, concern in her tired, weary gaze. The bizarreness of the whole gift wrinkles her brow, and makes the lines in her face deeper. Her eyes are dark. Like Kacchan's. Like his.
Izuku watches her from afar, mask still tightly planted on his face. Heart heavy, he walks far far away from the familiar apartment, from the person he used to call his mother.
The wood creaks as he walks down the dock of Dagobah beach. It's sweltering hot, and he can feel the heat of it even through his shoes. When he gets to the end of the dock, he pushes himself over the railing and sits there for a moment. The air is stifling. There is not a single breeze to be felt, to cool the sweat lining his neck.
He thought he'd forgotten how to regret.
He tips himself over the edge and falls into the ocean's cool waves. The water flushes behind his mask, through his hoodie, and soothes the itchiness of his neck.
Izuku sinks.